The New Rules
by born30
Summary: "Everything changed after that bullet lodged itself in my hip." An AU Tiva family story set six years post-S10.
1. Chapter 1

**Rating: **K+  
**Disclaimer: **_NCIS_ is not mine. The show and the original characters belong to Don Bellisario, Gary Glasberg, and CBS. The new characters, however, do belong to me. This was written strictly for fun, not for profit.  
**Summary: **"Everything changed after that bullet lodged itself in my hip."An AU Tiva family story set six years post-S10.

"_How dreadful...to be caught up in a game and have no idea of the rules."_

Caroline Stevermer

**Chapter 1/2**

The baseball obeyed gravity and fell with a _thwack_ into his palm, only to be immediately tossed again into the air above his head. Tony DiNozzo never slept well when his partner was in the field without him, and tonight was no exception. Even his go-to throw, catch, throw diversion was neither hypnotizing enough to help him fall asleep, nor absorbing enough to take his mind off…things.

Things like the woman who should have been on the other side of the bed he laid in now, and where she actually was in relation to him, which was nowhere close.

Things like the accident, as if the permanent stiffness in his right leg wasn't enough of a constant reminder.

And things like the rules. He'd been thinking about those for awhile, and they elbowed their way to the front of the line as he threw the ball up for the umpteenth time that night. In the breath between the next throw and catch, the screaming started.

Despite already being awake, Tony felt as if shocked out of a deep slumber. The paralysis was momentary. Without fully understanding how his bad leg allowed him to move so fast with no assistance from his cane, he was down the hall and in her bedroom within seconds of the first cries.

The room was dark, illuminated only by the dim glow of the nightlight, casting shadows of small, flailing limbs on the far wall. A lunge brought him to the bedside; quick reflexes saved him from a sock in the eye. He reached out, her tiny wrists fitting inside the loose rings of his linked forefingers and thumbs, and then held on as the arms continued to thrash.

"Hey, hey," he whispered over the staccato shrieks. "It's okay. It's just a bad dream."

More comforting words, murmured closer and closer to her ear as the passion drained from the wild appendages, brought about the intended effect. The screams quieted until only raspy whimpers were audible.

"There you go, sweetie." Seated on the edge of the bed, Tony rubbed wide circles into the postage stamp of her back. "Daddy's here. Nothing's going to happen to you."

"I want mama," the young girl sobbed.

"I know." His bedraggled sigh went unnoticed as his daughter began to cry anew. "Me, too."

He should have seen this coming. Hannah only had nightmares of this magnitude when her mother was away on business, so it stood to reason that one would strike during the latest assignment to take Ziva DiNozzo away from her family.

Tony hauled his bad leg up onto the bed and pulled the petite bundle to his side, cradling her under his arm. "It's okay to miss mama. But you know what?"

Curiosity acted as tourniquet, slowing the flow of tears dripping from her eyes. "What?"

"All you have to do is remember daddy's Rule #8."

Hannah craned her head up to look at him. Bouncy curls framed her heart-shaped face as her soft and rounded features contorted out of their usual symmetrical alignment to express deep confusion. "I don't knowwww," she moaned, using the last syllable to descend into a fresh sob.

When Tony told his wife about this incident later, he was definitely leaving out the part where he made their preschooler cry _harder_.

"Aw, Hannah Honey Bear," he coaxed while delivering a quick tickle to her side. The unexpected action caused a brief pause in her bawling, and each new attack from his fingers extended the tear-free moment. "Who's so sweet and sticky? That'd be Hannah Honey Bear. Oh yes, oh yes. Her tummy's full of…oh, what was it again? A tummy full of…funny jelly?"

"Yummy honey!" Hannah shouted as she giggled and flopped around the bed like a fish on dry land.

"Oh, that's it," Tony announced with feigned enlightenment and another tickle to her stomach. "Honey in this tummy right here, how could I forget?"

The girl shrieked in delight, but nevertheless ordered, "Daddy, stop, stop!" and rolled down the bed out of his reach.

"Okay, I'm stopping." Tony held up both hands in the universal gesture of surrender. The fact that there was a little DiNozzo in the world still often astounded him; that he was sometimes pretty darn good at being her father was even more staggering, given his uninspiring role model in Senior.

Popping up onto her knees, Hannah sat back on her heels. Her face pinched in what he recognized as the child's version of an expression he'd seen on the faces of many women before her. In simple terms, it was exasperation.

"When's mama gonna be back?" she asked suspiciously. As if he was hiding Ziva in the closet.

Tony had learned from several painful experiences that young children, not unlike dogs, had absolutely no concept of elapsed time or what it meant in relation to them getting what they wanted. Telling the three-and-a-half-year-old that her mama would be back in a few days would be no more effective than if he answered her with "soon" or "never."

"It's like I told you, Hannah." Tony crooked a finger, beckoning her closer, waiting until she was within an arms-length to continue. "We've gotta trust Rule #8. And if you can't remember it…" He held out his hand, palm up, before she could protest again. "Tag me in. Go ahead."

Hannah slapped his hand, hard, and laughed at the humorous face she received from her father in response.

"Be careful with your 'ol dad." He shook out his wrist in exaggerated fashion to her further amusement. "Now, as I was saying, Rule #8 is 'Always come home.' Do you know what that means?"

From the lethargic shake of her head, he realized her attention was already waning—along with her eyelids.

"It means," he resumed hurriedly, "that no matter why they left in the first place, when someone you love leaves for awhile, like mama, they have to come back home when they're done being gone."

Hannah rubbed a tiny balled fist against her eye, signaling the blatant presence of sleepiness. He'd been hoping for more of a reaction to his speech, but he took what he could get, and accepted the little girl, who was fading faster than trace evidence in water, as she snuggled into his arms.

"Mama has to follow the rules whether she likes it or not," Tony whispered into the silky hair at the crown of her head. "So don't you worry, she's on her way home to us."

As Hannah's breathing evened out, her heartbeat steadying against his chest, it was hard to tell if his reassurance was more to the benefit of his daughter or himself.

/-/-/-/-/

When they picked out the Capitol Hill townhouse just before Hannah was born, the cement stairs leading up to the front door were a non-issue, and Tony made sure they stayed that way. Going down was easier than coming up, but each step had to be calculated on leverage and balance, a labored process that he disregarded for this early morning errand.

With the baby monitor attached to his belt, he speed down the steps, using both his cane and the railing to hurtle himself to the sidewalk. He had a few minutes, tops, before Hannah woke up. Usually she acted as alarm clock for her parents, but the nightmare had disrupted her beauty sleep, and it appeared she was catching up on the lost winks.

Tony had been putting the extra time to use by taking a shower longer than the duration of a sneeze and eating a civilized breakfast at the table when he realized his cell wasn't in its customary spot next to his wallet and keys on the kitchen counter.

Rule #3: 'Don't be unreachable.' The tenet came rushing up from his memory unbidden. After working under Leroy Jethro Gibbs for over a decade and a half, it was second nature to cite the rules that guided the team through times strange and unusual, and everything in between. Not that abiding by the rules counted for anything these days; Team Gibbs was gone, disbanded following Tony's accident one year earlier, and reassigned for the last time.

All the more reason, he rationalized while crossing the sidewalk to the BMW X1 parked at the curb, to continue compiling a set all his own. It had practically been a direct order from the Great White himself.

Standing in his boss' basement six years earlier, Tony broke the news that he and Ziva were more than co-workers. That it had happened gradually, and that it wasn't fleeting.

"We know we're breaking Rule #12," the sandy-haired special agent said with a weak shrug. "Some things can't be helped, I guess."

Tony would never forget the way Gibbs looked up from his current woodworking project. His expression was that of sly fatherly pride. "All men make their own rules, DiNozzo. What are you waiting for?"

If only Tony had known then that it would take another five years and being shot to officially begin his collection, culling takeaways from moments and experiences both personal and professional over the years and chiseling them down into bite-sized morsels of wisdom. If only he had—

"Excuse us, sir!" The chirpy voice shattered his reverie and alerted him to the fact that he was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking the path for the owner of the perky exclamation and a dozen of her fellow Lyrca-clad moms.

The historic neighborhood might have been known for its proximity to the political epicenter of the United States, but Tony hadn't stuttered when he nicknamed it Stroller City. Abundant (and growing irritable) proof was staring him in the face, their squadron of industrial-strength jogging strollers like a swarm that aptly fulfilled their MOTH acronym.

People in this area really lacked imagination. Moms on the Hill. The Hill Rag. It was overkill, in his opinion.

From within the recess of a stroller, a small hand emerged and waved at him. "Candy cane man," the child shouted, "over here!"

Tony acknowledged the loud request with a nod in the little boy's direction, chuckling the whole time. "You remember that, huh? From last Christmas? You know, this," he said, lifting his black cane in view of all the little kids, "as you can see, is not a candy cane."

The same child clapped his hands. "Yes, it is!"

Tony slacked his jaw, aghast. "No, it's not! It was red and white tape, you gotta believe me!"

Giggles like dominoes toppled into the under 5-year-old crowd that ate up his descent into theatrical begging and endless contortions of silly faces. He'd spent so much time avoiding children when all along they were his target audience.

Once the show was over, Tony gladly cleared the sidewalk and tipped his imaginary cap to the passing MOTHs and kiddos, and got back on task. His smartphone was on the passenger seat and, of course, he'd missed a call. He pressed a button to hear the message.

Pinching the phone between his shoulder and ear, he closed the car door behind him and turned back in the direction that he came. Then her voice filled his senses, and his stride slowed.

"…so perhaps you are still putting Hannah to sleep. Kiss her for me. Goodnight." _Click._ End of message.

The adjustment to Ziva's frequent and often extended absences from home was still a work in progress. He thought better of calling her back right away when the faint, unmistakable rustlings of Hannah waking up filtered out of the baby monitor. He wasn't sure what he would say to her anyway.

_This whole secret investigative agent thing you've got going on, while gratifying to your career, is not working for your husband and daughter, so would you mind, you know, quitting? _

Well, maybe he knew what he _wanted_ to say, just with less chauvinistic overtones.

Tony slipped the cell into his pocket and placed his free hand on the railing, casting a glance over the flight of stairs, more daunting now than they were even five minutes earlier. He sighed, low and long.

Going up was harder than coming down.

/-/-/-/-/

Watching Hannah amble through the Navy Yard, the light-up features on the sides of her miniature sneakers minimized in the late morning sunlight, was truly a spectator sport. Waving, blowing kisses, smiling at everyone…her wanton affability was making Tony wonder if they were instilling enough stranger danger fear into her. He'd leave that to Ziva to remedy.

"Who's such a friendly girl?"

Hanna tilted her head in thought. "Who?"

"You, silly."

"Nooo," she said, stressing the word with her voice and her face, scrunched with anxiety. "I'm not Billy. I'm Hannah."

Tony sighed. Hannah inherited more than just her mother's dark, curly hair. "My mistake," he told her. "For what it's worth, you're a very pretty Billy."

Hand in hand, father and daughter walked at the same measured speed—her small stride matching his broken gait—up to the NCIS building, elongating the previously quick trip from the parking lot to the office by several minutes. Once it was his daily trek to work; now he was lucky to be summoned to his old stomping grounds once a month, and then it was only for some boring meeting.

Hannah tugged on his hand, her preferred way of ensuring she had his full attention. "Where are we going? Are we going to see mama?" she asked with growing excitement.

Tony was quick to correct her before the wrong idea could take root in her head; there would be no going back after that. "No, not yet. We're here to visit Uncle Timmy."

"Uncle Timmy, Uncle Timmy," Hannah sang and skipped forward, pulling on their joined hands. "Let's go, daddy, come on. I want to see Uncle Timmy, _now!_"

Tony leaned more weight from his right side onto his cane to keep his balance—and pace with her. "I'm coming…"

Eventually they made it up to headquarters, and once inside and through security, they took the elevator.

"I want to push the button," Hannah declared as they got into the silver contraption, stretching onto her toes and reaching with arms over her head for purchase on any and all buttons on the panel.

That was how they came to stop at four different levels before arriving at their intended destination.

"Hi there, cutie!" The blonde-haired secretary set a land speed record racing, in high heels, out from around her desk to welcome them. Or, rather, to welcome Hannah. Crouched down to eye level with the preschooler, she asked, "Do you remember me? I'm Meghan. You drew me a picture of a horsey the last time you were here."

Hannah nodded and giggled, her feet tapping out an excited rhythm on the carpet. Nevertheless, she hid herself behind Tony's leg, peeking around to smile at the nice woman.

"She's just acting shy," Tony explained. "Give her two minutes and she'll be your BFF again. If you happen to have a snack of grapes and cheese crackers for her, it'd be like, 'Daddy who'?"

"Aw, she's adorable." Meghan rose to full height, and in doing so, regained some of the professional demeanor that was cast aside at the sight of the cuddly little girl. "Do you have an appointment with the director, Mr. DiNozzo?"

"Nah. Just dropping in for a quick chat."

"He's free until lunch," Meghan informed. "I can watch her while you go in, if you'd like."

Tony smiled. "As long as it's okay with her."

Hannah had long since left the security of her father's leg for the fish tank against the far wall, her nose and chubby hands pressed up to the glass. "Hi, fishies! Hi! Daddy, there's an orange fishy! And a blue one! Swim over here, fishy!"

Tony knew for a fact that such a marvel could entertain her for a ridiculous amount of time, more than enough for him to sneak away unnoticed. Meghan walked over to join her, and the last image he saw as he passed through the inner doors to the director's office was the secretary pointing out more colorful fish to his enraptured daughter.

"Wow," Tony announced, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. "If she's half as good with angry diplomats as she is with little kids, I'd tell you to marry that girl."

The leather chair behind the large wood desk swiveled around to reveal Timothy McGee. "Hannah's here? Where's Ashlyn?"

Tony shrugged. "Gave her the day off."

"Why aren't you at work?"

Another shrug. "Took the day off."

McGee squinted at him, lowering the case report file in his hands onto the desktop. "O…kay. Why didn't you bring her in here?"

"She's occupied. You don't mess with that, McChildless, unless you're asking for a full-on, melt your eardrums hissy fit." Tony used his good leg to take one step further into the spacious room. "Besides, she's probably conned Meghan into braiding her hair by now."

"Better her than you."

"Hey, these fingers have been known to work magic." For emphasis, Tony dramatically wiggled his digits.

"Try a miracle," McGee snarked.

"Don't mind if I do."

Shaking his head at his old friend, the director smoothed down his tie, matched perfectly to his crisp Oxford, pinstriped dress shirt and navy blue suit, and gestured to the open chairs in front of his desk. "Take a seat. What can I do for you, Tony?"

The former agent glanced, imperceptibly, down at his leg, its rigidness equal to the straight spine of the cane lined up beside the damaged limb. Last night, adrenaline had enabled him to make it the few feet into Hannah's room without the crutch. No such luck today.

Tony tottered in his typical abbreviated stride to one of the chairs and lowered himself down, propping his cane against the edge of the desk. "There's this film, _Look Who's Talking_. 1989 romantic comedy starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. The one where you hear the babies' thoughts?"

"I know the movie," McGee acknowledged. "Just not why you took the day off, sent your babysitter home, and brought Hannah down here with you to tell me about it."

Tony stretched out his legs, crossing the good one over the bad at the ankle. "There's a scene where Alley's character goes to her boss/baby daddy's office, and when he ticks her off, she smashes his fancy pottery," he paused to chuckle, "with a stroller, and rubs her son's dirty diaper on his…desk." Pointedly, he gazed at the polished surface of the desk separating them.

Worry lines creased McGee's forehead. "You're scaring me. More than usual."

Tony leaned forward in his seat, his eyebrows raised. "I _would_ be scared if I were you."

"Are you telling me you're here to deface my desk?"

"Calm down before you wet yourself."

In that moment, it felt like they were on the same team again, back in the bullpen downstairs, pulling antics until Gibbs swept in to shut down the party with a proclamation of a dead petty officer and an order to grab their gear. But that reality was over, and in its place was one in which Tony wouldn't be able to leave the office of the youngest NCIS Director in the history of the agency without a little help from his cane.

"What I'm telling you is that _Look Who's Talking_ was on HBO last night," Tony elaborated, dropping all humor from his tone, "and I started watching it after I got Hannah back to sleep from the nightmare she had about her mom never coming home."

Understanding dawned on McGee, smoothing the wrinkles of confusion on his face.

"And I promised her that Ziva will follow Rule #8."

"'Never take anything for granted,'" McGee recited.

Tony exhaled a cross between a grumble and a sigh. "_My_ rules. I send you text updates when I add a new one—read them. It's 'Always come home.'"

The director sat forward, resting his clasped hands on the desk. "Look, I know the reassignments were hard on you, but it wasn't your fault."

"Everything changed after that bullet lodged itself in my hip."

"Maybe," McGee allowed. "But Vance was ready to retire anyway and you and I both know Gibbs was never the same after the investigation. The truth is a lot of people were resting on their laurels. The shake-up was necessary to ensure the office continued to run effectively and efficiently. Everyone is where they need to be now, including Ziva."

"According to you."

Nodding, the director replied, "Yes, according to me. You of all people know what she's capable of, and with her contacts, it was a no-brainer to have her lead up our D.C. special projects unit. She's invaluable in the field."

"And I wasn't anymore."

McGee pressed his lips together at the statement.

"Yeah, yeah." Tony waved off the pity he knew his former teammate was rehearsing in his mind.

"You do good work, too. The DoD hasn't launched any investigations into our cases or against our agents since you became the NCIS liaison." The hint of irony in the praise wasn't lost on the men in the room.

While only a trip across the Anacostia River from NCIS, his desk job at the Department of Defense felt a world away from his former career as a very special agent.

"I hate politics," Tony shuddered.

"And yet you have a knack for it." McGee stood up behind his desk. "Have you talked to Ziva about all of this?"

Tony lifted a shoulder to convey his nonchalance. "Never really been the right time..."

"'If you want something, go get it.'"

Perking at the phrase, the liaison sat forward in his seat. "Rule #2. You _do_ read my texts, McSneaky."

McGee chuckled. "She's coming home, Tony. And when she does, talk to her." The director passed behind him on his way to the door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to say hi to my honorary niece."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **A big thanks goes out to everyone who followed or made this story a favorite and those who left reviews! I hope that you all enjoy the second and last part of this story. ^_^

**Chapter 2/2**

One of the benefits of having a preschooler was that the overwhelming task of caring for their basic needs alone left few instances to dwell on anything besides how to occupy them until bed time.

Tony made it through the next day by focusing, alternately, on briefing DoD officials on the status of ongoing and of-interest-to-national-security NCIS cases, and when he went home, on his daughter's evening ritual of dinnertime, playtime, bath time, and last-snack-time.

Her snack of choice that night was warm milk, drank sip by leisurely sip from her mini Caf-Pow cup, while she used her daddy's lap as a couch and watched twenty-five minutes of what was her current movie obsession, _The Incredibles_ (which never happened when mama was home), before finally allowing herself to be tucked under the princess comforter in her big girl bed.

Then suddenly, the wait was over.

When he got home from work the next evening, Ashlyn informed him that Hannah had insisted on dressing up special for her mother's return, which translated into pink shorts over the pink leotard usually reserved for her little tyke's gymnastic class and her beloved light-up sneakers.

The shoes sparked vividly in the waning twilight as father and daughter entered the base airfield. She confidently led the way to the arrival zone, further convincing Tony that they performed this routine too frequently.

What he had expected to accomplish with his visit to McGee's office, he wasn't entirely sure, but he was sure it hadn't happened, because when his wife appeared from around the hanger door, he was no more prepared to "talk to her" about his concerns than he had been all year.

"Mama, mama!" Hannah squealed as she broke free of Tony's hold on her hand and dashed into her mother's waiting arms. The little girl buried her head in Ziva's shoulder and held on tight.

The only blotch on an otherwise sweet moment was Ziva's slight wince as she picked up Hannah, settling the girl on her right hip instead of the customary left, an adjustment that cleverly allowed her left arm to hang at her side, bearing no weight. No matter how Tony's investigator mind added up the nearly imperceptible discrepancies, each equation equaled nothing good.

Staggering forward to meet them, he searched out her eyes over their daughter's abundant ringlets. What he found was a calm gaze. Too calm.

"We missed you," he confessed.

Hannah was already chattering, breathlessly filling Ziva in on everything that had happened in her absence, and the agent smiled, responding to both of them as she assured, "I feel it."

/-/-/-/-/

"I told you we'd eventually end up cripples. I got us halfway there…"

Somehow, Tony had managed to keep his opinions to himself on the drive home from the base and all through dinner, which dragged on due to Hannah's slow eating habits and the endless agony that was Ziva not touching her food. All he wanted was to make her rest, and now that he had her snug in bed, he had a default audience for his long-simmering thoughts.

Ziva squinted at him, and he could see her struggle between admonishing him for joking about his injury and admonishing him for calling her a cripple. The result was a mingling of both. "When did you ever say that? And I told you, it is nothing."

With a tentative finger, Tony grazed the white bandage wrapped with professional precession around the bicep of her left arm. It was covering a deep gash made by a stray bullet, sustained in an impromptu firefight during the last stage of the mission. That was as detailed as she was willing to get, so he would have to wait until the final report landed on his desk to uncover the rest of the story.

"You say it's nothing; I say a bullet wound is definitely something."

"I have survived worse."

"Yeah, so have I," he snapped. "But what about next time, when you're not as lucky, when the damage is a little further to the right and center?"

It seemed that it wasn't so much what he said as the barely restrained fervor with which he ground the words out between clenched teeth that seized her full attention. If not caused by his leg, his anger was a rare spectacle. The tension connecting their locked gazes was abruptly broken by a small body.

"Mama, hold still." Hannah maneuvered between her parents, her steps uncertain on the malleable surface of their bed. She collapsed to her knees, but never dropped the plastic syringe from the toy doctor kit she'd received as a Christmas gift from Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Breena. "You need a shot to be all better."

Tony snatched the toy out of her hand, effectively detouring its trajectory for Ziva's bandaged arm, and threw it off the side of the bed. "No, Hannah, not now. Go play—"

"She is fine, Tony," Ziva interrupted over Hannah's protesting whines; his daughter was no more accustomed to this side of him than his wife.

She dragged the spooked child into her lap. The movement elicited a sharp intake of breath from the dual agent and mother, and it served as the final straw for him.

"Ziva, I—"

Her sharp look cut short whatever he was planning to say. "I am putting her to bed," she told him and swung her legs out from under the covers.

"Let me do it," he offered.

But she was out of the room and down the hall with Hannah in her arms before he could move his bad leg off the bed. A frustrated groan rumbled at the back of his throat, and his open palm struck the outside of his thigh, but the area was still so numb that the forceful action failed to register any pain.

"Perfect." Tony tossed his head straight back against the wooden headboard, feeling a satisfying throb radiate from the spot of impact. "There it is."

/-/-/-/-/

Twenty minutes later, a new record for getting Hannah to sleep with only dinnertime and playtime observed from her ritual, Ziva lingered in the doorway of their bedroom. Barefoot, in a tank-top and yoga pants, and her dark curly hair—longer than he remembered it being the last time she was home—falling loosely over her shoulders, she could almost pass for one of the MOTHs in the neighborhood. Only his wife carried a gun in the back of the stroller when she went out jogging with their child.

Tony didn't perfectly fit the mold into which he was now expected to conform, either. The game had changed. Marriage, fatherhood, a career-ender and a fresh start. It was safe to say he was still learning all the new plays.

"Sorry about…before." His words slivered through the thick silence. "I think I was in a crankier mood than Hannah."

Arms crossed, Ziva held her left elbow in her palm to alleviate pressure on the arm. "Are you going to tell me why you want me to resign from special projects," she began, "or will I have to ask?"

As an aside, Tony muttered, "I'm gonna slap McGee silly," and then to her, "I never technically said 'resign.'"

"He called me yesterday." She tapped a finger once, twice on her forearm. "You could have called me _back_."

"Didn't want to bother you on the job."

"That has never stopped you before."

Tony lifted his chin, regarding her from his seat on the bed. He hadn't moved since she left. "She has nightmares when you're gone. Hannah," he added for clarification, not that it was needed. Their whole world revolved around Hannah. At least his did.

Ziva clamped a corner of her bottom lip in between her teeth, as if gnawing on a tidbit of information from someone else's life, unsure what to do with it or about it.

Because she was silent, Tony continued. "When she was born, we said we were going to make it work because neither of us wanted to give up our jobs. We agreed that we'd drop her off on the second floor child care and pick her up at the end of the day, together."

Coming to life under the thinly veiled accusation, Ziva burst off the doorframe and ended her advance at the foot of the bed. "We did, Tony, until you were shot." The last word tripped up her heated retort, derailing her momentum.

McGee couldn't convince him otherwise: his accident _had_ changed everything, not the least of which was underscoring the ever-present threat of a little girl losing one or both of her parents as a result of their routinely dangerous day jobs.

Picking up the thread that had momentarily slipped through her fingers, Ziva asked, "That is why you wish for me to quit, then? For Hannah's sake?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"You are telling me it has nothing to do with your leg?" Her eyes bore pointedly into his. "Or the fact that you can no longer be in the field yourself?"

Tony flashed a brilliant smile, all teeth, and held his arms open. "Am I that transparent?"

Her unamused expression didn't come as a surprise. "Tony…"

"You know what I think about," he cut in, "on the nights when you're not here? And that's a lot of nights. How ironic it was that it happened when we weren't watching each others' backs, like it's supposed to be. How it might have been different."

Two fingers pinched the bridge of her nose between closed eyelids. "We have been over this, Tony. Someone had to be with Hannah when she was sick." A wave of fatigue weighed her shoulders down as she looked up at him. "It was an accident. That ricocheted bullet could have just as easily hit McGee or Gibbs."

Tony held onto her gaze. "Or you."

The power of suggestion nudged her hand up to cover the fresh dressing on her arm. "It is no longer your job to protect me."

Tony scoffed shallowly, shaking his head in disbelief. "That's where you're wrong, Mrs. DiNozzo. That will always be part of my job description, no matter where the hell I work. It's a rule." He folded his arms over his chest. Case, rested.

Angling her head, she pursed her lips in thought. "Which one is that again?"

"That," he said, and laughed without humor, "right there, is why you need my rules." He gestured to his legs, to the room, to what his life had become. "If you haven't noticed, I can't exactly be around to remind you of them anymore. And I…"—a breath—"can't lose you again."

Though he hadn't planned on it, his words—or maybe the combined total of all that he'd said up to that point—sunk in and had the effect of softening Ziva. He could see her defenses lowering one by one until she was not an agent, not his former partner, but his best friend, the woman he broke all the rules to rescue in Somalia and who he swore to love and care for, till death do them part.

"Rule #33." The peace offering slid into the quiet surrounding them. "'Once partners, always partners.'"

"Ah." His measured nod belied his relief that their argument was nearing the end. He could sense it. "You were just giving me a hard time. That's my funny Israeli."

She sauntered around to his side of the bed, leaning her knees against the edge of the mattress as she pressed closer to him. Slender fingers found the collar of his shirt, the skin of his neck, the stretch of his collarbone.

The sensations that his wife's touch had on him registered all the more because he never looked away from her deep brown gaze, the same one that he'd glimpsed, sought out, and stared into from across their desks for years, and that he knew would hold him captive for as long as she was willing to stare back, bound by whatever she saw in his eyes that proved similarly mesmerizing, that wouldn't allow her to look away, either.

Her hands' reacquaintance with his body came to an end on either side of his face. The smooth pads of her thumbs gently caressed the day's growth of stubble on each cheek. "I have not meant to make you worry," she assured him. "It has never been my intention to hurt our family with this job."

Even as she dropped her hands to his chest, Tony wrapped his own around her wrists, keeping her as near to him as he could. "Tell me you like it better now. The team gone…McGee in Vance's seat, Gibbs teaching woodworking out of that cabin of his…I mean, come on!" His exclamation was too loud, but it elicited a small chuckle from her nonetheless. "I never thought I'd say it, but we got off easy. At least he never tried to teach us how to properly wield a chisel."

With a nod of her head, she motioned for him to scoot over, and she filled the space he vacated so that they sat side-by-side.

"Of course I wish things could be different." Ziva placed her hand on his hip, her fingers resting over the spot where hot metal had once ripped into thin flesh and left an indelible mark on more than just the skin. "Many things."

Tony got the feeling she was referring to more than just his injury, but they'd already poked enough open wounds for one evening.

And then she was guiding his face down to hers and kissing him, tenderly, and all too briefly. She drew back to regard him with a tilt of her head and an equally tender, closed-lipped smile. "From now on, I will try to be home more, but Hannah needs at least one parent who is here for her at all times."

"She also needs her mother."

That earned him another kiss, but also shiny, glistening rings around the inside of her eyelids. Tears that would never fall.

"Is that one of your rules as well?"

Tony indulged her question willingly, all too happy to follow her lead in a more light-hearted direction. "I think it's covered under #8, actually."

At the mention of the particular rule, she smiled delicately in acknowledgement of the sentiment it carried.

He nudged her good shoulder with his own. "Someone does keep up with her texted rule updates. Now follow them, okay? I promised Hannah that you would."

Ziva snuggled into his side, careful not to disrupt her wounded arm. "Well, I have to, yes? They are your rules."

_Your _rules. _His_ rules. _Daddy's_ rules. _Tony's_ rules.

The game had indeed changed, and they needed an updated set of rules to match. Luckily, he already had a collection started.

"Make that, the _new_ rules," Tony amended as he pulled them down, down, down onto the bed and under the covers, tucking her beneath him for safekeeping.

/-/-/-/-/

His hands over hers, Tony assisted his daughter in positioning the slip of paper on the glossy surface of the fridge, attaching it with the flower magnets typically used to clasp the sides of her Crayon renderings of squiggly people, smiley suns, and the occasional horse.

Hannah bounced on her tip-toes and clapped enthusiastically at the finished product. "Look, mama, look!"

Ziva watched on from the kitchen island against which she casually leaned her hip, sipping from a mug of coffee that she clutched between both hands. "I see, sweetheart. Did you help your father make it?"

"She sure did," Tony replied with a quick tickle to the said little helper's tummy.

Hannah giggled, folding herself in half to cut off his access to her most ticklish area, which gave him an opportunity to steal a glance at his wife. She met his eyes steadily, a warm smile dawning on her lips. He couldn't stop himself from beaming back at her.

"Daddy, daddy," Hannah said, inadvertently interrupting a moment between her parents. She tugged firmly on Tony's hand and pointed at the paper that listed the set of existing rules; space at the bottom of the sheet awaited future additions. "I don't know what it says. Read it to me?"

All Tony had to do was reach down, outstretch his arms, and she eagerly clambered inside, holding on around his neck as he stood tall. "I'll do more than that, Hannah Honey Bear," he guaranteed. "I'll teach them to you."

**The end**


End file.
